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Enhancing Network Security: Device Protection Strategies

Learn how to safeguard major devices like routers, firewalls, and switches against cyber attacks. Explore steps to secure routers, control ports, manage passwords, and improve overall network security effectively.

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Enhancing Network Security: Device Protection Strategies

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  1. – Chapter 3 – Device Security (B) • Security of major devices: How to protect the device against attacks aimed at compromising the device itself • Routers • Firewalls • Switches • Authentication servers • wireless access points • … Network Security

  2. Steps to secure a router: • Controlling SNMP as a management protocol • Controlling HTTP as a management protocol • Using CEF as a switching mechanism • Setting up the scheduler from a security perspective • Using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) • Login banners • Capturing core dumps • Using service nagle to improve Telnet access during high CPU events • Backup of configuration files and the router software • Controlling access to the router (tty, vty ports) • Securing access to the router (via SSH) • Password management • Logging events on the router • Disabling unnecessary services • Using loopback interfaces Network Security

  3. 2. Controlling access to the router • A tty port is physically connected to a terminal or workstation for local administrative access to the router. • An aux ports, similar to a tty port, is connected to a modem for remote out-of-band administrative access to the router. • A vty (virtual tty) port is used to allow remote in-band connection sessions, via telnet, ssh, or rlogin. • See http://www.netbook.cs.purdue.edu/othrpags/qanda272.htm for Q&A on “out-of-band” network management. Network Security

  4. Vulnerabilities of tty or aux ports • A tty or aux port may suffer reverse telnet attack, where the terminal server connected to the tty port or the modem connected to the aux port of the router is used by the attacker (as a remote client) to access the router. • Reverse Telnet(as defined in Wikipedia) • Check out this link to see an illustration of using ‘reverse telnet’ to remotely access a router. (diagrams below) Network Security

  5. Normal telnet Network Security

  6. Reverse Telnet Network Security

  7. Reverse Telnet (cont.) • Another example: What is Reverse Telnet and how do I configure it? Network Security

  8. Vulnerabilities of tty or aux ports • Solution? • Disable the console port Line con0 transport input none • Allow only SSH access to a router’s console port (a feature added to IOS v12.2 or higher) Line con0 login authentication default rotary 1 transport input ssh ip ssh port 2001 rotary 1 • Requirement: The router must be set up as a SSH server. Network Security

  9. Controlling vty access • Restricted access: Only allow the protocols that will be used by the network admin • Since Cisco IOS v11.1, the default is none. • Example: To allow only telnet and ssh connections line vty 0 4 transport input telnet ssh • Only addresses in the ‘access list’ are allowed to connect: access-class, access-list (See example 3-6) • Short timeouts: • The default timeout value is 10 minutes. To set it to 5 min. 30 sec. line vty 0 4 exec-timeout 5 30 • Authentication for vty access: either local or RADIUS authentication (preferred). Network Security

  10. 3. Securing access to the router using encryption • IPsec VPN client (preferred; more details in Ch 13) • Two cases: • The VPN client access a back-end LAN (the destination) by building a tunnel between itself and a router (the IPsec gateway), behind which the LAN is located. • The VPN client is used to remotely administer the router, which is both the gateway and the destination. • SSH: Only SSH v1 is supported by Cisco IOS Example 3-11 Network Security

  11. 4. Password Management • Passwords stored on the router should be properly encrypted. • The default password-encryption is either type 0 (clear text passwords) or type 7 (weak encryption). • Use the enable secret command to activate MD5 when encrypting passwords. • Example 3-12 Network Security

  12. 5. Logging events • Advantages: Allows auditing and tracking  forensics (in case of an attack) performance tuning (maintenance) • Requirement: good time stamping  using NTP • Example: 3-13 Network Security

  13. 6. Disable unnecessary services • If a service is not being actively used on a device, it should be disabled. • Otherwise it may be used as a back door for the attacker to gain access to the device. • Sample services to be disabled: Table 3-1 TCP small servers, UDP small servers, Finger server, … Network Security

  14. 7. Using loopback interfaces • Advantages: Enable a block of IP addresses to be assigned to be used by loopback. • All routers can be forced to use these loopback IP addresses as source addresses when accessing the servers. • The servers can then also be locked down to allow access only from this block of IP addresses. • Accesses from addresses outside this block are denied. • Example 3-14 Network Security

  15. 8. Controlling SNMP (as a management protocol) • SNMP can be used in read-only and ‘read and write’ modes • Unless necessary, use read-only mode on routers. • The ‘read and write’ mode allows the admin to modify the router’s configurations via SNMP. • Access into the network via SNMP should be blocked at the network’s boundary. Network Security

  16. 8. Controlling SNMP (as a management protocol) • Security of SNMP: • v1 and v2 use ‘community strings’ as the only authentication mechanism. (Not secure) • v3 is more secure by providing MD5 or SHA for authentication, and DES for encryption. • SNMP v3: threats vs protections (p.65) Network Security

  17. 9. Controlling HTTP (as a management protocol) • Unless necessary, HTTP access to the router should be disabled. • Admin access to the router via HTTP should be secured, by activating authentication. • Example: 3-19 Network Security

  18. 10. Using CEF as a switching mechanism • Cisco Express Forwarding • Routers using the traditional switching mechanisms need to update routing caches when packets destined for new addresses arrive. • SYN floods and DDoS attacks use a large number of random or pseudo-random IP addresses as ultimate targets. • CEF replaces the normal routing cache with a data structure that mirrors the entire routing tables. • It does away with the need to update the cache each time a new IP address needs to be routed to. Network Security

  19. 11. Using the scheduler • scheduler allocate • scheduler interval • To prevent the router from becoming too busy responding to the interrupts on its interfaces due to the large number of packets arriving  large-scale network attack, esp. a DDoS attack • Example 3-21 Network Security

  20. 12. Using NTP • Network Time Protocol • Critical for services requiring good time stamping: logging, AAA, Kerberos, … • Challenge: authentication between devices exchanging NTP information Network Security

  21. 13. Login banners • Sequence: • Login banner • login session • MOTD banner • EXEC banner (or incoming banner) • Example: 3-25 Network Security

  22. 14. Capturing core dumps • In the event of system crash, the core dump may provide useful info for tracking the attack(s). • Example: 3-26 Network Security

  23. 15. Service nagle • Nagle is an algorithm that can be enabled as a service on a Cisco router, to allow the router to pace the TCP connection for Telnet in a way that reduces the burden on the CPU and generally improves the performance of the Telnet session. • service nagle (Example 3-27) Network Security

  24. Security of other devices • Firewalls, switches, … • Similar procedure • Check the default settings • ‘Harden’ the device before placing it into use in the production network. Network Security

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